The internal scoring system of high impact factor journals like Science and Nature

Many people do not realize that high impact factor journals like Science/Nature and others have an internal scoring system where they rate both authors (as well as reviewers!). The huge number of papers being sent to these journals force the editors to use some statistical methods to rapidly eliminate a big chunk of manuscripts.

I often hear people complaining that they send lots of manuscripts to these journals and got turned down even when their work was considered a breakthrough. The thing is that if an author has sent manuscripts 3-4 times and got rejected, the next set of papers being sent, by the same author, will automatically get rejected without even being read. Of course, the editor of the journal will always respond with a standard reply saying that you're unlikely to succeed in the competition for limited space and they have to make harsh choices, and so on. But the truth is that you have been statistically eliminated.

So the advice is that if you sent 2 manuscripts and got rejected, STOP SENDING! Wait for 2 years before sending them another one.

Similarly if you have 2-3 papers already published in prestigious journals, the likelihood that your subsequent ones are going to be sent blindly to referrees is pretty high.